Eighty years ago today Leon Trotsky was assassinated in Mexico by Ramon Mercader, a Stalinist agent. Here’s my take on that significant event in twentieth century history as it affected George Orwell. It’s a short extract from my novel Barnhill when George Orwell feared for his life on Jura. Were his fears justified?
In the novel George Orwell and his friend Paul Potts walk from the Barnhill farmhouse to the north of Jura and discuss Orwell’s fears.

“(George) spotted David Holbrook who appeared to be following them from a distance. ‘Don’t look now, but we’re being followed.’ He made it sound like a conspiracy. ‘You know, I made some enquiries about David. He’s a card carrying member of the Communist Party.’
‘You don’t say.’
‘Well, I smell a rat. Stalin murdered Trotsky in Mexico by infiltrating an agent into his house who was the boyfriend of one of his supporters. One day as the old man was writing at his desk he crept up behind him and smashed his skull with an ice axe.’ George illustrated the action with his arm. That got Paul’s attention. ‘And you know what? Trotsky was writing a biography of Stalin at the time. Maybe that’s why David’s here. The Stalinists hate Animal Farm with a vengeance and they may have heard I’m writing a new book which could damage them even more.’                                            ‘I can’t believe you’re serious.’
‘I’m deadly serious.’ He turned away so that David couldn’t see him and showed Paul the Luger pistol stuck inside his belt under his shirt. ‘I got this from Rodney Phillips after I gave Hemingway back his Colt. You never know when you’ll get a bullet in the back of the neck.’
Paul shook his head in disbelief. ‘Don’t you think you’re being a bit paranoid, George?’
‘No, I don’t. I saw a lot of things that the Stalinists did in Spain that I’d never have believed….’”
Orwell tried unsuccessfully to persuade Fred Warburg to publish Trotsky’s unfinished biography of Stalin. However, what he didn’t know was that Ramon Mercader had trained David Crook to spy on Orwell, his wife Eileen and the Independent Labour Party contingent in Barcelona in 1937. Crook stole their internal files and took them to the Russian Embassy to be photographed. Gordon Bowker revealed this in his biography of Orwell.

Were Orwell’s fears of being murdered by Stalinist agents justified? Is the Russian secret police under Vladimir Putin continuing Stalin’s policy of murdering political opponents today?